Tallie's Knight Part 20

"Milor' d'Arenville said you are to go shopping after breakfast, Milady. I have ordered the bath, and laid out a gown for you. I thought per'aps we go first to the milliner, and then later to the glover, and after that..."

"After that we shall see," said Tallie, deciding she needed to be firm about this shopping business. It was all very well to shop, but she wanted to see more of Paris, too. She wanted to experience as much as she could before they left for Italy.

"Where is my husband, do you know?" she asked, picking up a pastry. "E 'as gone out, milady.

"E say to tell you 'e will back in time to escort you to dinner."

Dinner? She was to wait until dinner to see him? Tallie was crushed.

She did so want to see him now, after all they had shared during the night.

"Oh, but-' We 'ave Claude, the footman, to escort us, milady," Monique a.s.sured her.

"Milor' d'Arenville 'as left instructions that you are always to 'ave 'im as your escort, so you need not worry. All 'as been arranged by mil or So it seems, thought Tallie, disappointed. Escort indeed! A paltry footman instead of her magnificent husband. She did not want to explore Paris with a maid and a footman--she wanted Magnus.

"Very well, then, I suppose we will have to waste the whole day shopping," she said dolefully.

"Perhaps if we hurry we can get it all finished and out of the way today."

Monique gave her an odd look, which Tallie ignored. She finished her pastries and the chocolate, had her bath, got dressed and went downstairs. Her new personal footman, Claude, awaited her in the hall. She blinked in surprise.

Claude was a most unlikely-looking footman. He was short, with a barrel chest and long arms which hung down like a gorilla. His face, too, had a simian quality; most of his teeth were missing and his skin was badly pitted with the pox. He was quite the ugliest man Tallie had ever seen in her life.

Wondering what on earth had possessed her husband to hire such an odd-looking footman, Tallie allowed herself to be escorted off in search of feminine falderals, Monique tripping beside her, Claude trudging heavily in the rear.

Hoofbeats pounded over the cold ground, echoing in the dim silence of the Bois de Boulogne. The hooves of the sweating horse tossed up clumps of gra.s.s and damp earth. Branches swatted its sides. But the rider held his mount with a firm hand and pressed on, faster, harder, as if to outride the devil himself.

But it was not possible to outride one's own thoughts and fears, thought Magnus, even as he spurred his horse to greater speed. He was on the brink. She'd driven him to it. He rode onwards, oblivious of his surroundings.

Was this how it had started with his father, too? With a declaration of love from an innocent bride? A lifetime of control, shattered in an instant. He pulled up his sweating horse, dismounted and led it to a stream.

The horse drank thirstily. Magnus leaned against the warm, heaving flank and stared into the fast-flowing water, listening to the burble of clear water over smooth round stones. Her eyes were like that, he thought--dappled with colour, clear and bright and glowing with life.

He groaned. Had his father also felt this aching chasm open up in him?

This void, this abyss. of need. Was this how it had begun for him?

He knew how it had ended--a slow, inevitable descent into h.e.l.l. A strong man of honour and dignity reduced to. what? A beggar at his wife's gate. A slavish worshipper, whose happiness well-being and position--whose very honour--depended, in the end, entirely on his wife. A wife who cared for nothing but riches and the pleasures of the flesh--with whomever her roving eye descended on.

Magnus could not remember a time when his parents had not fought, lavishly and long. The bitter recriminations and violent rages. And each time ending with his mother giving his father that sultry come-hither smile, the smile which had invited him to her bed once again. And his father gratefully accepting--honour, dignity and self-respect forgotten--until the next time he discovered her with a handsome footman, a good-looking stable boy one of his friends or even a pa.s.sing gypsy.

Magnus had grown up swearing he would never let a woman make a fool of him that way. He'd resolved never to marry, never to allow a woman close enough to cause such damage. He'd thought it no hardship. until he'd held a sleeping toddler in his arms and realised he was depriving himself of children. And so he'd married. Thinking he could handle it. Believing he could keep his wife in her proper place--at arm's length.

But he'd chosen Tallie, naive, innocent Tallie, who needed a protector more than any female he knew. Who'd undermined his de fences from the mo menthe married her. No, from even before that--he would never forget the sound of her sobbing in the maze that day. He should have walked away then. only he hadn't been able to leave her alone and unprotected, to fend for herself in the world.

Bedraggled little orphan that she was then, he'd never suspected how much he would come to desire her. Magnus closed his eyes in despair.

He had never desired a woman so much in his life. And that had been prior to last night. last night, when she'd accepted his embrace with a joy and a sweet, loving pa.s.sion that had left him shaking inside. And even now, hours later. He'd thought he could slake his desire for her . he only craved her more. t Man of the world that he was, thinking he'd experienced everything a man and woman could do together--he'd never known it could be like that, two coming together as one, an explosion of sensation and emotion filling a void inside him he had never known existed.

When one blurted, tearful declaration of love had shattered a lifetime's resolution and sent him spinning towards the abyss.

/ love you, Magnus.

Magnus remounted his horse and spurred it onwards.

He returned in the evening. Tallie was overjoyed to see him, and hurried forward for his kiss, but he turned away to remove his coat and hat. When he turned back to face her his visage was impa.s.sive and coolly polite.

"Did you have a good day?" he said, walking past her to a sideboard and pouring himself a drink.

"I... all right," she faltered, a little thrown by his coolness.

"Enjoy the shopping?"

"N... I ... er, yes, I suppose so. We did a lot of it. Monique insisted."

"Very good. It is almost time for dinner, so I suggest you make yourself ready. We have been invited to dine with friends of Laet.i.tia who are also visiting Paris--Lady Pamela Horton and her husband Lord Jasper. Shall we say one hour?" And with that he laid his gla.s.s aside, stood up and left the room, leaving Tallie staring after him.

What had happened? Was he angry with her for some reason? Why was he treating her as a polite stranger would? Where was her husband of last night? The man who'd called her sweetheart--twice--and held her tenderly in his arms while she wept? And then made magnificent, glorious love to her--not once, but three times in one night. Four, if you counted the wondrous morning episode.

Hurt and confused, Tallie allowed herself to be dressed in her new finery. As Monique added the final touches to her hair Tallie stared at herself in the mirror and ordered herself to stop moping. She should be thrilled--she was going to dine out with her husband and his friends. In Paris--the most romantic and exciting city in the world. And she was wearing the finest and most fashionable clothes she had ever worn in her life.

But she didn't feel thrilled at all. All she could do was wonder what had gone wrong, why Magnus was acting so distant and cold towards her when only that morning he had made love to her and kissed her goodbye so tenderly. Oh! It was foolish to repine, Tallie told herself sternly.

It wasn't his fault if he did not love her--it was a marriage of convenience, after all. He hadn't been cruel--not even cross or irritable. Only reserved and distant. And very polite. It would be foolish in the extreme if she allowed herself to fall into a fit of the dismals merely because her husband was polite to her.

On that bracing thought Tallie left her chamber and joined her husband in the entrance hall.

"Lord and Lady d'Arenville." The footman's announcement caused a small stir in the s.p.a.cious and elegant salon. Lady Pamela, a tall, elegant woman dressed in a ravishing green dress, came forward and greeted Magnus warmly.

"Magnus, you wicked man, you're late. And this is your little wife.

How do you do, my dear? " She cast a quick, indifferent glance over Tallie, who at once felt small and plain, despite her fashionable dress.

"Now, Magnus, there are a dozen people who wish to renew acquaintance with you. Oh, and here is Jasper. Take care of Lady d'Arenville, my dear." And, slipping her arm through Magnus's, she led him away to join the throng.

Tallie watched with dismay, then recalled it was not comme il faut for a wife to dwell in her husband's pocket. She didn't wish to embarra.s.s him, particularly on this, their first social engagement as a married couple. She turned to smile at Lord Jasper.

"Champagne, Lady d'Arenville?" he said, and without wait's Knight ing for her reply he beckoned a footman over and handed her a gla.s.s.

"That'll do the trick, my dear. Now, who do you wish to meet? Anyone you know?"

Tallie shook her head.

"Ah, well," said Lord Jasper and shepherded her over to a small knot of people. He quickly introduced her and a moment later left. Tallie gripped her gla.s.s and did her best to join in the conversation, much of which concerned people she didn't know and places she hadn't been to. It was very difficult when one had spent most of one's life in Miss Fisher's, where pupils had been expected to be silent except when laboriously practising conversazione once a month over weak tea and stale cakes. Miss Fisher's conversazione had been nothing like this.

It seemed an age before dinner was finally announced. Tallie was heartily glad of it--Magnus would come to take her in to dinner and she could relax for a time. And besides, she was ravenously hungry.

Tallie dipped her spoon in the lemon sorbet and tried not to stare down the long table to where her husband was sitting. With Lady Pamela. Talking and smiling and showing every sign of enjoying himself. Sighing, she turned her head and shouted once more at her neighbour. He was an elderly general, and deaf as a post. His deafness, however, did not prevent him from firing question after question at her, obliging her to shout responses into his ear trumpet.

She glanced at her other neighbour, a tall, thin, depressed-looking Polish man, who spoke no English, very bad French and had the appet.i.te--and the table manners--of a starved gannet. His dinner was the only company he required.

On the other side of the table a lively middle-aged Frenchwoman flirted light-heartedly with her neighbours. She caught Tallie's eye several times and smiled in a friendly fashion. Tallie smiled back shyly, wishing it was possible to join in, but it would be dreadfully bad manners if she tried to talk across the table. No, she was stuck with the General and the Gannet.

She glanced up to the head of the table. Lady Pamela had her hand on Magnus's sleeve, whispering in his ear. Tallie sighed, and shouted once more into the general's ear trumpet.

At long last the ladies retired, to leave the gentlemen to their port, but by that time Tallie's throat was quite sore from all her shouting.

In any case, almost n.o.body spoke to her. The friendly Frenchwoman had left early and everybody else seemed to have known each other almost from the cradle.

She might as well be a Hottentot for all she had in common with these people, she thought, sipping her tea. Lady Pamela was just like Laet.i.tia--all she did was talk about people who weren't there, and the nastier the story the more everybody laughed. Tallie sat with a teacup on her lap and smiled and tried to look interested and smiled some more, feeling as if her jaw would crack if she had to go on smiling much longer.

The Hottentot princess sat chained to the chair of the foreign invaders. She was hostage for the good behaviour of her husband, the Prince of all the Hottentots, but her spirit was not daunted and she did not feel betrayed by her husband's absence. These were her enemies, these foolish, arrogant people who spoke so freely in front of her. The Hottentot princess smiled at her enemies, but it was the smile of a sleeping tiger. Little did they realise she understood every word they said.

Very soon her dashing husband would come to rescue her.

"Tallie, my dearest love," he would say.

"Let me rescue you from these evil ones whose tongues wag like chattering monkeys. You mean more to me than any kingdom or throne. I will take you to a place far away from here, where we can be alone." The beautiful grey eyes of the Prince of all the Hottentots would darken, and he would bend and add, in that wonderfully deep voice which never failed to send shivers of delight through her, "And then, my beloved Tallie, we will make love all night long, and again in the morning, too..."

But at the end of a very long evening, Magnus brought her home, wished her goodnight, perfectly politely, and went to his own chamber.

Miserably, Tallie curled up into a small huddle in the middle of the large bed. It had become plain during the course of the evening that Magnus was angry with her. She had displeased him in some way. Some dreadfully significant way. Several times during the evening she had caught him staring at her, and the expression in his eyes had sent an icy chill down her spine.

It was if she had betrayed him in some way. almost as if he hated her. Tallie had obviously failed him. but she could not imagine how.

True, she hadn't been very successful at the dinner, but she had tried. and he knew she'd mixed little in society. And besides, he'd been cold and distant to her before that.

But how could a man spend all night making pa.s.sionate, tender love to his wife, and in the morning kiss her and call her sweetheart, and then return in the afternoon acting as if she had tried to destroy him?

When all she had done was love him?

Over and over in her brain, Tallie's thoughts churned, until she felt quite sick with misery.

The next day, when she awoke, Monique brought her the news that her husband had gone to stay with friends near Versailles. He would return in a week. Or two.

The first night Magnus was away Tallie cried herself to sleep. She had visited an art gallery during the day. The second night he was away she cried herself to sleep again. But during the day she had attended an outdoor puppet show, and gone for a promenade with Monique and Claude in the park. She might be unhappy, and upset with her husband, but she didn't want the world to know it.

The next morning Tallie had a visitor: the French lady she'd seen at Lady Pamela's--Madame Girodoux. Tallie was feeling utterly blue-devilled, but didn't have the heart to say she was not at home. Besides, she was lonely. Company might cheer her up.

Madame Girodoux swept into the room. She was a widow in her forties, very thin, very fashionable and very sophisticated, but there was kindness in her narrow, sloe-dark eyes. She seated herself beside Tallie on the chaise longue and chatted for a short time, but in the middle of a story she suddenly broke off, took Tallie's hand in hers and said, "You must forgive my forwardness, my dear, but I was an unhappy young bride once, and I recognise the symptoms."

At her words Tallie burst into tears.

"Now, cherie," said Madame Girodoux some time later, 'it seems to me as though your young man 'as bitten off more than 'e can chew. "

Tallie blinked.

"What do you mean?"

"It was a manage de convenance, nest-ce-pasT Tallie nodded.

"But you 'ave fallen in love, ouiT Tallie nodded again. Madame

Girodoux smiled.

"I think per'aps you are not the only one."

Tallie blinked again.

"I have noticed your us band watching you--it is not the look of a man

who is indifferent."

"No, he... I think he dislikes--' " Nonsense! I have 'card of your usband before this. They call him The Icicle, nonT Tallie nodded."Well, I see no ice in 'im when 'e looks at you, my dear. I see fire."

"Fire?"

"Oui. Fire, to be sure. Absolument. And when ice meets fire,

something must crack--and it is not the fire, believe me. Your us band is afraid, but 'e will return and the ice will disappear." She patted Tallie's hand.

"E will not be able to stay away from you for long, pet.i.te--'e will be back soon. That will make you 'appy, nonV She eyed Tallie shrewdly. "Your bed is lonely, nonT Tallie felt a fiery blush flood her face.

Madame Girodoux chuckled.

"Yes, I thought so. The bed has a way of melting ice. May I give you some advice? I 'ave been married twice, you know, both times very 'appily-though the first one started badly."

Tallie nodded, a little embarra.s.sed at the other woman's frankness, but eager to hear her advice.

"No doubt when your us band returns you will be ready to do anything to please him. Per'aps entice 'im to your bed again."

Tallie blushed rosily once more.

Madame Girodoux chuckled.

"No shame in that, cherie, but women need to use their brains as well as their bodies when it comes to marriage. It does an us band no harm to be kept a little uncertain at times--remember that when your man comes back to you. Men respond to the uncertainty of the chase."

Tallie blinked. Magnus was not chasing her--on the contrary; he was running away. But she nodded, pretending to understand.

Madame Girodoux stood up.